Early Risers.

[Mike Bellamy]

On 11/05/2021 at 06:13, chrisf said:

Some will wish to know that this is Mental Health Awareness Week.  “Don’t suffer in silence” is sound advice, but as we all know it is much easier to give advice than to take it.  We are told that it is good to talk.  It is, and it’s OK to not be OK.  I speak from experience.  As some know, I needed help in dealing with mental health issues a few years ago.  Initially I felt ashamed.  I was wrong.  It will not be long before the gradual lifting of the pandemic restrictions bring to light many instances of mental health issues: think the bit of the iceberg that lies beneath the surface.

 

The BBC are supporting Mental Health Week including a long and very interesting interview with the only female freight train driver in Scotland - and after suffering after a suicide under her train (whilst as a passenger driver) she now helps those who have had mental health issues after similar incidents. A well written and informative report.

 

Click Here for link to BBC Report

.

 

[The Lurker]

Greetings all from Sidcup which is cool and cloudy but currently dry.

 

Good to hear that there may be a way forward for Dave's Dad, and best wishes to Gordon.

 

Still not a lot to report here; Younger Lurker soldiers on with his cold/sore throat. His twice-weekly lateral flow test revealed nothing more sinister. He has an inset day on Friday which will please him!

 

Re iD's comments around age related aches and pains coming in your 30s, this reminded me of SF writer Larry Niven's suggestion as to the causes and the existence of the Pak Protector as an alien species. Made for some good tales (esp the Ringworld novels)

[iL Dottore]

4 hours ago, polybear said:

....A full english....

55 minutes ago, PupCam said:

...Now there is a concept! 

Full English Pie!  (leave the Black Pudding out of mine please)...

A splendid suggestion indeed! 
Sorry, puppers but the black pudding stays! It wouldn’t be a Full English breakfast without black pudding. Baked beans are certainly a no-no, not only because I think they are the frogspawn of the devil, but also they’d make the pie too soggy.

i’m in two minds about whether or not to use bacon rashers or bacon lardons. Either way the bacon, sausage pieces, chopped mushrooms and cubed black pudding will need to be almost completely cooked and allowed to cool before putting into the pie. The idea would be to almost fill the pie with the  chopped ingredients and then make a well in the middle of the pie into which you break a raw egg (hopefully keeping the yolk intact - a bit like brik à l'oeuf); then pack some more ingredients around the egg, put the pastry lid on, chill in the fridge for 30 minutes and then bake at 220°C until golden brown. So when you cut into the Full English Pie you will be rewarded with a lovely runny egg yolk which you can then mop up with the carbohydrate of choice that you serve with the pie. The only thing I’m not quite sure about, is the type of pastry to use: rough puff pastry, shortcrust pastry, puff pastry or suet pastry.

Any ideas, guys?

3 hours ago, Barry O said:

...pie filling.. steak and cheese, lamb and  mint, bolognaise, seafood, bacon and egg, corned beef and onion.....

Some excellent suggestions, although I don’t think Bolognaise (which is usually a sloppy mess of mincemeat, tinned tomatoes and is a British invention that any Italian would fail to recognise it as any sort of a proper pasta sauce) or even a correctly cooked Ragú alla Bolognese would be suitable as a pie filling as it’d be too wet. The Lurker’s suggestion of steak, chilli and chocolate could work (basically a beef mole in pastry. Note that in this context a mole is a savoury Mexican sauce in which the principal ingredients are chilies and bitter [black] chocolate and NOT a small black-furred burrowing mammal)

 

I’ve just returned from a shopping expedition and I have some stewing beef and a veal kidney as well as some bone marrow. So it looks like the first pie I shall attempt will be a steak and kidney pie enriched with bone marrow. I’ve also bought some floury potatoes so that I can cook some triple cooked chips. As to the “green vegetable” I have absolutely no idea, fennel, broccoli, peas and green beans are all possibilities (thoughts?)

 

Anyway all this talk about food is making me hungry and I realise that I have to have a quick lunch before getting to work.

 

Have a great day.

 

iD

[New Haven Neil]

Back.

 

Visited friend (retired traffic officer), good chin wag, and close obs of his latest project - an Ex-WD (no....) 1940 Matchless G3. I say WD as it was originally RAF, got a bit bombed, and when rebuilt went to the Army.  Great to have it's history, but not unfortunately its exact squadron/units for some reason, although he does have its correct WD number.  So it is decorated as the machine 'belonging' to his dad, who was a Sergeant in some regiment I don't recall, excellent stuff.  Puppers would appreciate it, but it is all a bit old for my tastes.  It chuffs along rather, one speed only - slow.

 

Now I have to decide how to waste the rest of my day.

[New Haven Neil]

Short pastry iD, no other will do for a breakfast pie!  Damn the carbs, I want one!

[The Stationmaster]

Morning all,

 

Good to hear some better news about Dave's dad and I hope a decent upward curve can be established from now although from experience I know just how difficult that can be - to me the key thing is to try everything possible to get him into a more positive state of mind (far easier said than done and I wish Dave and Jill well with that less than simple task).  Hopes too that Gordon is on an upward path.

 

Seeing the name of the NSW premier I do wonder if she is the offspring of a Sydney taxi driver?  I only hope she could find her way from the CBD to Central because that was a 'skill' distinctly lacking in the various imported European folk who seemed to somehow end up driving taxis in Sydney.

 

I see too that the Class 800 thread continues to meander its way between facts from those who know and various 'ideas' from those who very clearly don't - reminds me why I no longer spend waste any time visiting sorting the wheat from the chaff in that part of RMweb.

 

Good service yesterday from part of the NHS who have managed to squeeze me in with Mrs Stationmaster's diabetic eyesight review on Thursday.  As the reviews have been shifted from local surgeries to a 'community health centre' in a nearby (large) village I couldn't attend because the only way to get there is by car.  However another part of the relevant Hospital Trust has given the GD four days off this week (to avoid paying her for extra days worked) and she can take both of us - so excellent service at short notice from the eye screening folk.

 

Have a good day one and all and stay safe.  Talking of which the somewhat nutty woman standing here in our ward's county council election on a ticket of' Covid doesn't really exist and we should all be hugging each other in pubs' actually managed to get 110 votes - equatinq to 3% of the votes cast on a 40% turnout.  One of the political candidates only managed 328 votes out of 3682 votes cast.   The apolitical Residents Group candidate won with 62% of the votes cast while the other political candidate got 26% of the votes.

[PupCam]

3 minutes ago, The Stationmaster said:

I see too that the Class 800 thread continues to meander its way between facts from those who know and various 'ideas' from those who very clearly don't

Welcome to the internet    I find, in the most part, internet forums fascinating things.  

 

As you all may have noticed I (along with probably everybody else) have a wide range of interests and hence use a number of forums.   I've noticed that it doesn't matter what the subject is, you see the same types of users  on each.    Sometimes it's very easy to confuse "Mr Bellend" from the fishing forum (not that I fish) with Mr Richard Head from the stamp collecting forum (not that I collect stamps, but you get the idea).   However I normally find it quite easy to dismiss both Mr Bellend's and Mr Head's contributions and concentrate on the  useful, informative and/or interesting contributions from the more sensible members.    Mr B & Mr H do at least provide some amusement at times although if the timing is just right (maybe that should be wrong?) it can result in unfortunate accidents with the Coffee / Mouth interface with disastrous results for the keyboard and monitor ...

[J. S. Bach]

And a RAINY good morning to all. About four weeks ago I bought a wireless remote-reading rain gauge second hand at the Christ Central Thrift. The display was lit in the store (no off switch) so I put the rain receiver in the sink and created some "artificial rain" with the sprayer; everything worked. Then I put it outside. No rain for a week and a half! When it finally rained, the gauge worked quite well. I just need to re-locate the rain bucket to a more open location further out in the yard.

[polybear]

4 hours ago, New Haven Neil said:

Bacon 'n egg in the pie, yes Baz!

 

Isn't that a quiche with a lid?

 

4 hours ago, jonny777 said:

I will have to contact Virmin Media about their router, which my iPhone now decrees is too insecure for the phone to even bother connecting to the internet.

 

 

Bear made several attempted calls to a sink manufacturer yesterday, dialling a landline number starting in 01923.  On both occasions I was connected to some poor bvgger's mobile number, who was nothing whatsoever to do with the company.  It seems he'd had "at least 20" other calls like that - to say he was more than a bit p1ssed off would be an understatement; he certainly taught this Bear some new words....

I'll leave that particular sink enquiry a few days I think.

 

2 hours ago, PhilJ W said:

A full English in a pie sounds great, as long as they leave out the baked beans.

 

Wot, no Beans?? 

 

1 hour ago, iL Dottore said:

Sorry, puppers but the black pudding stays! It wouldn’t be a Full English breakfast without black pudding.

 

Only strange full english brekkies served north of the Watford Gap contain Black Pudding.  At least when it's outside a pie you can bin it.....

 

1 hour ago, iL Dottore said:

Baked beans are certainly a no-no, not only because I think they are the frogspawn of the devil, but also they’d make the pie too soggy.

 

Chef has no appreciation of fine cuisine, as well as taking the easy way out of a challenge....

 

1 hour ago, iL Dottore said:

The only thing I’m not quite sure about, is the type of pastry to use: rough puff pastry, shortcrust pastry, puff pastry or suet pastry.

Any ideas, guys?

 

Yeah, you forgot the chips and fried bread....

 

 

31 minutes ago, PupCam said:

Mr B & Mr H do at least provide some amusement at times although if the timing is just right (maybe that should be wrong?) it can result in unfortunate accidents with the Coffee / Mouth interface with disastrous results for the keyboard and monitor ...

 

Pleased to be of service, Sir...

As for spraying Tea, buddy "Marsh" caught Bear very unawares one day with a smart comment, resulting in a certain Bear spraying keyboard, monitor, desktop, desk, documents.....

Fortunately none of the above was owned by Bear - and Bear was being paid to clean up the mess, which took a while....

[J. S. Bach]

7 hours ago, iL Dottore said:

Good morning all,

 ...snip...

So, a request to the ER community: any thoughts as to top-notch pie fillings? I’ve already got steak & ale, steak & kidney, chicken & mushroom, cheese & onion and game lined up - any other possibilities???
Have a Happy Hump Day

iD

Hmmm, nothing that I would suggest would meet your exacting standards! A couple of those that you mentioned sound quite tasty. Now you have gone and done ti; I am now hungry!

[Tony_S]

47 minutes ago, PupCam said:

concentrate on the  useful, informative and/or interesting contributions from the more sensible members

I would like to think of myself as sensible but being not very knowledgeable about lots of things tend not to express an opinion on such things. I have always been impressed by the knowledge and willingness to share and explain by people on this part of the forum. 

[Tony_S]

For some reason Aditi seems to think my answer of “black pudding “ in answer to whether I would like something added to out weekly Waitrose order is a facetious answer. I could order some myself I suppose from Morrisons via our Amazon Prime account but a £40 minimum order is quite a lot of black pudding. 

[simontaylor484]

56 minutes ago, polybear said:

manufacturer yesterday, dialling a landline number starting in 01923.  On both occasions I was connected to some poor bvgger's mobile number, who was nothing whatsoever to do with the company.  It seems he'd had "at least 20" other calls like that - to say he was more than a bit p1ssed off would be an understatement; he certainly taught this Bear some new words....

I'll leave that particular sink enquiry a few days I think.

Many years ago the AA printed a book with phone number for hotels and restaurants. They printed the number for a Restaurant called Swiss Cottage in Wentbridge. Unfortunately someone with fat fingers had got the numbers wrong they just happened to coincide with my Grandparents house in Darrington the next village. (They were lucky it was my dads dad so they didnt get the colourful language of my other grandad)

He got that fed up he ended up taking table bookings 

[TheQ]

Why is it when I get eye drops during a eye test is it always a bright sunny day....

 

The doctors have lost my prescription , it's on the computer as received, and made up. But it's not been issued and they can't find it..

[PupCam]

41 minutes ago, Tony_S said:

I would like to think of myself as sensible

As a relative newcomer to ER,  all the contributors seems good here to me, well maybe excluding that Puppers bloke.  

 

Can't say I agree with every opinion on every single subject but what a dull place if everyone's views were a perfect match! 

Hmm that would make it  the Stepford Early Risers wouldn't it?   

 

I think there's a big difference between the "differing perspectives" of contributors and the typical contributions from Mr B and Mr H whether they be related to fishing, stamp collecting or a current embarrassment with British rolling stock.  

 

If we might touch on that last subject but briefly, I seem to recall that there might have been some structural problems with the bogies of my beloved Deltics when they were first introduced and didn't some of Mr Gresley's beautiful locomotives (I might have given away my railway allegiance here ) suffer from cracked frames?     Nothing new under the sun ....

[The Stationmaster]

2 hours ago, PupCam said:

Welcome to the internet    I find, in the most part, internet forums fascinating things.  

 

As you all may have noticed I (along with probably everybody else) have a wide range of interests and hence use a number of forums.   I've noticed that it doesn't matter what the subject is, you see the same types of users  on each.    Sometimes it's very easy to confuse "Mr Bellend" from the fishing forum (not that I fish) with Mr Richard Head from the stamp collecting forum (not that I collect stamps, but you get the idea).   However I normally find it quite easy to dismiss both Mr Bellend's and Mr Head's contributions and concentrate on the  useful, informative and/or interesting contributions from the more sensible members.    Mr B & Mr H do at least provide some amusement at times although if the timing is just right (maybe that should be wrong?) it can result in unfortunate accidents with the Coffee / Mouth interface with disastrous results for the keyboard and monitor ...

Quite agree however one particular problem on RMweb - and no doubt elsewhere - is that somebody with a little finger nail's worth of knowledge (if that much) posts something giving the effect that it is the real facts duly leading those who have no knowledge up a variety of creeks aided only by very short paddles.  And it's sometimes a pain having to waste time correcting it when you do happen to have all the proper relevant information or even to have actually done such jobs yourself

[Tony_S]

4 minutes ago, The Stationmaster said:

nd it's sometimes a pain having to waste time correcting it when you do happen to have all the proper relevant information or even to have actually done such jobs yourself

Then there are those who ask a question and then argue with the answer supplied by someone who knows! That happened quite frequently in my life when I had to support computer users in educational establishments. I should say some people in some establishments to be fair. 
Tony

[PupCam]

9 minutes ago, Tony_S said:

when I had to support computer users in educational establishments

Would they have been PICNIC problems I wonder?

[simontaylor484]

8 minutes ago, PupCam said:

Would they have been PICNIC problems I wonder?

Is that when you have forgotten the  pork pies 

[Ian Abel]

HUMP morning...

 

Quiet again yesterday, managed a walk with Whitney and that's about it.

Seems the a/c in the car is playing up so I'm probably going to have to get it in to be looked at today <sigh> at least it's under warranty

 

3 first thing, sunny and expected to make 19 for the high.

 

Have a good day, all.

 

 

[jonny777]

Clouding over now in Somerset. Persistent rain not far away. The washing is dry, and I am going to celebrate with a bottle of Henry Westons Vintage Zider

 

I phoned Virmin and a very patronising friendly bullsh1tter call centre operative informed me that Apple had insisted they changed the security settings on their routers, and he could talk me through how to fix it. 

 

I began to think that, if customer service is as important as you profess it to be, why have I not received a message to this effect and instructions on how to do this myself? 

 

Could it be that Windows customers are still seen as priority, and Apple people as the idiots who buy expensive equipment to look cool? Therefore they are bottom of the pile? 

 

Anyway, it all works now - and my problems seem to have been sorted. 

[PupCam]

49 minutes ago, simontaylor484 said:

Is that when you have forgotten the  pork pies 

Forgetting the pork pies is a very serious picnic problem! 

Edited May 12, 2021 by PupCam
Typo

[polybear]

In other news:

 

[iL Dottore]

2 hours ago, polybear said:

...Wot, no Beans?? 

....Only strange full english brekkies served north of the Watford Gap contain Black Pudding.  At least when it's outside a pie you can bin it.....

...Chef has no appreciation of fine cuisine, as well as taking the easy way out of a challenge....

.... Yeah, you forgot the chips and fried bread....

1. Believe it or not, but many people, across the world, eat absolutely fantastic meals without a single baked bean (tinned or otherwise) in sight....
2. Oh Bear of limited horizons, I have had some great Full English Breakfasts including Black Pudding, in such Northern strongholds like Camden, Borough Market and Shoreditch...
3. Methinks Bear is the one without an appreciation of fine cuisine. Fine Cuisine (amazingly) often involves food that is (a) not deep fried, (b) doesn't come from a tin and (c) isn't 100% carbohydrate.
4. Au contraire, Dear Bear, my Steak, Kidney and Bone Marrow Pie will be served with homemade triple-cooked chips. As the main course will be quite substantial, the first course will be a small salad with homemade croutons (that's fried cubes of bread) - so, broadly speaking, chips & fried bread have not been forgotten.

One of the great advantages of being a Sophisticated Gastronaut whilst being surrounded by the culinarily oblivious is that's there's more for me ... and there's no pressure to share....

[New Haven Neil]

Well I didn't waste the afternoon, but got the log splitter out for a couple of hours and reduced some of the enormous bits of tree that a friend dropped off to burnable stick size.  Much, much more to do but its a start.  Absolutely knackered now of course.

 

We have friends in Darrington, Simon - but they don't get lots of other folks phone calls!  Nice place, but too close to the new bit of the A1M now of course.